Anumpa Warrior by Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer

Author:Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RockHaven Publishing

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Western Front, France

October 1918

During our halt at Somme-Py, our commanding officers reported to Lejeune at his P.C. for detailed instructions on the relief at St. Etienne. I wasn’t in that conference, but it wasn’t much more useful than the first time. We didn’t have the promised supplies and it looked like we wouldn’t get them before we entered the front line.

Lieutenant Horner showed me a map afterward. I looked it over, searching for the front line. I couldn’t make out the faded marks, not even enough to read the town names. I started to turn it every which way but didn’t want to look foolish.

When I handed the map back to the lieutenant, he folded it with a snap. “Don’t worry, Corporal; it doesn’t make sense to anyone else, either.”

Boy, he wasn’t happy. All the maps given out at the meeting were scant. None showed the exact location of the front. Worse, the sector we were to operate in was encompassed on the corners of four different maps, which made them difficult to read even pasted together.

All we really knew was the 142nd was to relieve the American 4th Marine Brigade on the left. Those Marines had done some fighting! The 2nd Division, victors of Belleau Wood, was a mix of Army and Marine.

The 142nd set off hiking toward the front, four miles away, trying to find our place. That was no easy task with the useless maps and guides from the AEF who couldn’t find us.

In the chaos that night, battalions got separated from their units, companies from battalions. The guides reported to the wrong units and constant shelling nearby didn’t help rattled nerves.

The 142nd finally went back to where we started at Somme-Py, found a guide, and set out again. Colonel Bloor and several from headquarters company were on motorcycles and in automobiles, but they kept getting bogged down in the mud.

By the time we made it to our position on the front, we were exhausted. But we were there, ready to relieve the Marines at St. Etienne. We’d arrived where the growth of pines and underbrush began to thin as they spread out toward the village. The space between the forest and the town was clear and open to draw fire from machine gunners and snipers.

No Man’s Land.

If we hadn’t marched so hard to get there in time, the ground gained at heavy cost by the American 2nd Division would’ve been lost.

But this vast front was foreign to us, and even to the 2nd Division. The German soldiers, on the other hand, knew every foot of it.

From the Blanc Mont Ridge, which was won by the Marines shortly before we arrived, you could see for miles. Situated due north of Suippes with Somme-Py at its southern base, the ridge was strategic and we couldn’t afford to give it up. That was why the 36th was transferred under French General Gouraud and shoved in to relieve the Marines.

Finally at the front, I didn’t rest until my squad was seen after.

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